Reading and the Cold

So I may or may not be writing this to put off reading for school just a little bit longer. However, that reading will get done in plenty of time too - it is Friday after all!

It has been a good past couple of weeks. And about half the time I even don't feel incredibly behind. Two weeks ago I did preach my first sermon at a church that wasn't my home church, and I preached it three times in a row! That was a decidedly interesting experience, because the sermon changed somewhat form time to time, and I'm pretty sure the people who came to the late service got the best rendition. After my full day I came home and ended up passing out until evening. 

That evening, a couple of my friends who graduated from Trinity last year, Russ and Sarah, came into town, so I was pleased that I was able to wake up from my long nap in time to go to dinner with them. I got to spend time with them on Monday night too, and it was great to see them again and catch up with everything going on in their lives beyond seminary. 

I finally attended my final first class, which was Church and Sacraments. It is a systematic theology option, where I'll learn both about what it means to be the church, and what we believe about the sacraments. We only meet once a week, which means I have a lot of reading to do in between every week, but I love the class already, and I'm excited to see what comes of it. My week after that went quite smoothly, getting into the swing of my classes, and trying to sort out exactly how much time I'm going to have to spend reading every day (it's a lot).

Then this past weekend, Silas came into town to visit and celebrate valentines day with me! Of course a wicked winter decided to join him, which was a bit of a shame. I drove in near white-out conditions to pick him up from the airport, which is an experience I'd be okay never having again in my life. Saturday night we went out for a lovely dinner and all was well until I slipped and fell in the skating rink that was the parking lot on our way back to my car. I wasn't hurt badly, so it was mostly comical, especially when I nearly brought Silas down with me while he was trying to help me up! 

Sunday we spent most of the day cooking proper Texas chili to share with my friends from the north who don't understand why I'm always a little disappointed when I try chili here. We made it with ancho chilies, dark beer, stew beef, and bacon, and it turned out amazingly. When I tried it, I kissed Silas and told him I loved him even more than I had before. We had a great dinner and evening with my friends, and it was lovely to eat something so warm when it was so cold outside. 

On Monday we did venture out a bit, but the cold kept us from taking any long walks. That day it snowed more, so after going to see a movie, Silas introduced me to snow ice cream, which is something I had never heard of before. It was a fun thing to do with all the snow we were getting. 

My weekend with Silas was absolutely wonderful, and during his visit I had another interesting experience. There was one internship supervisor in town early this week, and I had not intended on interviewing with him. However, he read my information and asked to have a meeting with me. We talked for an hour and I found I was really pleasantly surprised by the supervisor and the church. It's now a place that I think I might be happy at for internship and that I'm keeping in mind. All of the rest of the interviews will take place this next week, and I have nine more to go! I'm really excited about the whole process and excited and anxious about where God will send me. 

This week I also got to spend some time babysitting an infant for the first time, and it was her first time having a babysitter! We had a good time together, and it's nice to take a break from school to spend time with a baby every once and awhile. I did read her a few psalms out loud, which she seemed to enjoy. Being the daughter of two pastors to be, I'm sure she'll be hearing things like that plenty. 

Finally, this morning I had my first ever experience with a dead car battery. Luckily, my entire apartment complex is full of people I know, so I was able to get a jump and my car came right back to life. You know it's too cold out when the cold is draining your car battery! I'm planning on staying inside as much as possible until it warms up again! 

This weekend my plan is to spend my time reading and working on a text critical study and translation of the Bible passage I'm working on in New Testament. I think this semester is going to keep me plenty busy! I still love all my classes though, and I think I'm getting quite good at reading quickly, so that I understand enough without having to take in every word deeply. It's the only way to get through. 

Now off to read Who is the Church? and a book about Hermenutics!

Peace be with you all. 

The Start of a New Semester

So here I go again, a brand new semester, and I am going to make an effort to write here more often. I actually really miss it. Since I last wrote, I've done Christmas and New Years at home, come back to Ohio, taken a class on Emotional Intelligence, and jumped both feet in to this semester of classes and work.

Christmas was wonderful, full of time with friends and loved ones, and I enjoyed every minute of it. I got to reconnect with a few of my friends in Texas, Kevin and Amy were able to come up for Christmas and stay for three whole days, and Silas visited for New Years, and we made our regular New Years date at Fearings in Dallas.

I drove back with my Mom and George, both of whom make great travel companions. Other than getting stressed out by the rain and the dark the first night and stopping early, the drive was nice, and it was lovely to have Mom along to keep me company. George was glad to be back in his apartment where no other animals live.

I spent three weeks in a class on emotional intelligence, which was fascinating, but exhausting. It was a class where we spent a lot of time learning about ourselves and how we lead. I learned a lot about myself, but it was also a lot like counseling for three hours a day every day. I ended up taking several long naps over my J-term.

I also spent that time being the J-term sacristan, which was a nice way to ease back into my job. We had worship services each day, but they were very simple, and a lot of wonderful people helped to create and lead the worships. I still love planning and executing worship in any form, so doing it in this smaller way was lovely.

Then after a week off, I jumped into the semester full swing. It's almost hard to believe that I have only had two days of my regular spring classes. We began with a communion service, which I loved getting ready. There's something about the happy chaos of getting a large service set up and running that just makes me feel in my element. Read into that about me what you will. Then my I-group began planning our own week of worship services for the end of the month. Then I took a mile and a half walk with a couple of friends, ate lunch while I played fetch with George, and finally went to my first class.

I began my semester with a class called Hermenutics for Preaching, which I am excited to be in. We're learning about how a preacher goes about reading the Bible and telling a congregation how it applies to them today. Seems like an easy question, but it's deeper than it appears, and I think I'm going to learn a lot in that class.

Thursday introduced me to four more of my classes. Care of Souls will help me dive into pastoral care, something that is really important to my forming pastoral identity. Once again, there is so much I can learn from there. Then I went to New Testament 2, covering the New Testament after Acts, and it's going to be a tough class, but I think worthwhile. And the professor is fantastic. Next was Psalms, which I think will be fascinating. I have always loved the Psalms, but I think this class will help me to really engage with the poetry of them and be able to use them more in my future work. I finished the evening with Spanish. I'm excited to be back in Spanish this semester, and I'll be taking Spanish three.

Speaking of speaking languages I don't know well. This Monday, we're putting on our first Spanish/English bilingual morning prayer service, and I've been asked to be the Spanish leader! Apparently some people think I have a decent enough grasp of the language to read and lead at the same time.

Then comes this weekend (I know, half this blog is covering four days). Yesterday I spent a day doing worship planning and getting prepared for interviewing with internship supervisors. Oh yeah, in just over a month I should know where I'm going to be spending my next year. On the subject of internship I oscillate between terrified and excited, so I'm reading the applications from all the churches and being as organized as I can in an effort to remain more often on the excited side of things. I meet with supervisors at the end of the month, and I'm really looking forward to getting a chance to actually talk with the pastors and get a feel for them.

Then today I began my day teaching children about the fifth and sixth commandments of the big ten. You shall not murder and you shall not commit adultery. People say that you really know a subject when you can teach it to a child, and I have to say I definitely spent more time than before thinking on these two and how it might be best to teach them to 11 and 12 year olds. This was confirmation, and the class actually went really well, despite several giggles that ensued. I spent the afternoon getting ready for church tomorrow, which is going to be a bit more complex than normal. Tomorrow is the first time that I will preach the same sermon at three different services, so obviously I had to write a sermon, and because one of the pastors is out of town, I'll be doing everything for one of the services. One nice thing is that our motto there is basically "if you make mistakes, it's okay, worship will still happen and God still loves you"

Well, that's probably enough of an update for now. Thanks if you've stuck with my through this whole post! I'll keep you up to date about all I'm learning and doing, and next week I'll even tell you about one more class I'm enrolled in that doesn't meet until Monday!

Peace be with you all.